This invention relates to a filter arrangement comprising a first balanced amplifier having a non-inverting and an inverting input and having a non-inverting and an inverting output, a first and a second input terminal, a first and a second output terminal, a first and a second feedback circuit, each comprising a first capacitor, the first feedback circuit being arranged between the inverting output and the non-inverting input of the first amplifier, and the second feedback circuit being arranged between the non-inverting output and the inverting input of the first amplifier, a first and a second input circuit, each comprising the parallel arrangement of a first resistor and the second capacitor, the first input circuit being arranged between the first input terminal and the non-inverting input of the first amplifier and the second input circuit being arranged between the second input terminal and the inverting input of the first amplifier, a connection between the inverting output of the first amplifier and the second output terminal and a connection between the non-inverting output of the first amplifier and the first output terminal.
Such a filter arrangement is very suitable for realising active RC filters comprising balanced amplifiers.
Active RC filters comprising a balanced amplifier are known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,019. This patent describes the basic principle of an active RC filter comprising a balanced amplifier. Moreover, said patent reveals some filter types based on said principle including a first-order low-pass filter (FIG. 3). There are several known methods of designing a filter having specific desired characteristics. A frequently employed method is that in which lower-order filter sections are cascaded. It is common practice to employ first-order and second-order sections for this purpose. Section orders higher than four are hardly ever used because such sections are difficult to realise. A filter arrangement of a type as defined in the opening paragraph is known from the article "New Structures for MOSFET-C Filters", Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 75, No. 7, July 1987, page 957. This article describes how difficult it may be to translate known filter designs into versions comprising balanced amplifiers. Said article proposes three different second-order filter sections comprising balanced amplifiers. A disadvantage of these known filter circuits is that only second-order filters are mentioned and that neither of the filters is suitable for realising all the filter operations which are customary and possible for said order without thoroughly modifying the circuit configuration, i.e. without changing the interconnections between the filter elements and, sometimes, the positions of the inputs and outputs of the network. For this reason the systematic design of active RC filters comprising balanced amplifiers is a difficult task.